Cool & Helpful Links

If you know of any other cool and/or helpful information or videos we can link to, let us know!

As we've mentioned elsewhere on our site, Sheldon Brown was the man. His site is still a repository of more bike knowledge than most of us will ever know.

If you're looking for longer, plain-gauge 4130 steel tubing, including small diameter tubing for racks, check out Aircraft Spruce & Wick's Aircraft. They both have a great selection. Wick's will occasionally have nice deals on shipping.

Basic thread concepts specific to bikes, courtesy of Park Tools. It is helpful to know that you'll often see bolts or threads referred to as M5, M6, or M-whatever. The M refers to metric.

Shimano 2020-21 frame requirements: Part 1Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. This will help you understand where to place brake bosses, disc tabs, etc. This will likely become a frequently referenced guide.

I get a lot of emails and phone calls from people asking for tube recommendations. They're chomping at the bit to get started but almost always, details are fuzzy as far as what kind of bike they actually want. I always encourage them to start with a frame drawing. This is where you have to decide your wheel size and tire width and if you're running fenders, what kind of cranks & chainrings you'll be using - all that kind of stuff. These are all important details that inform many of your tubing and geometry decisions. Frame drawings come first!

For virtual frame drawings there's BikeCad. Frequently you'll hear, "It ain't cheap but it's totally worth it." Time is money and BikeCad will save you both.

If you don't use BikeCad, or even if you do, lines-on-paper frame drawings are really helpful. There's something about the physicality of being able to lay your tubing on the paper to see how it 'll all come together. Steve at Pithy has a video where he tackles this. So does Paul Brodie.

Moving onto more general knowledge, there's an information-rich wiki created by Peter Verdone.

Speaking of Peter Verdone; his site is great. Some of this stuff is really inside baseball, but it can be helpful to go in deep to understand all the things that go into the decisions that need to be made.

Pink Five - A bike for his girlfriend
 

If videos are your jam, check out Pithy Bikes YouTube channel. Seriously, Steve's got a bucket of awesome going on over there.

As montioned above, Paul Brodie, who is likely the YouTuber with the most framebuilding experience. And check out Ellis Briggs doing a wide range of videos.

Also check out Joe from Cobra Framebuilding Tooling. He's got a great YouTube channel where you can see him work through all sorts of projects including building a hardtail mountain bike. Look for more great tools from him.

For a bunch of frame jig options, see our page "What do I need to build my first frame?"

Peloton has a couple of profiles: one of Breadwinner (back when it was Tony Pereira and Ira Ryan), and another of Ira Ryan, now out on his own again.

While not frame building specific, check out Path Less Pedaled on YouTube. We're on board with Russ' philosophy of #thesupplelife.

On Path Less Pedaled, check out the interviews with Tony and Ira where they get all nerdy on geometry and other minutia.

We can't mention everyone, but we also want to give a shout-out to:

Mr. Love and Fury himself and possessor of the coolest headbadge in the industry, Joseph Ahearne of Ahearne Cycles.

The nicest builder you'll ever meet, Christopher Igleheart. Big news is that Christopher is now retired and living the dream in France! We miss you, Christopher!

Christopher & Joseph joined forces years ago to start Page Street Cycles. It will continue without Christopher and will feature collaborations between Joseph and other builders. It's a non-custom sort of operation. More to come!

There's also Bob Kamzelski of Bantam Bicycles. He's a frame builder's frame builder. Framebuilder Supply shares space with him and he's a ready source of all sorts of hard-won knowledge.

Interested in a fairly comprehensive list of frame builders around the world? Check this list out!

Are you looking for love for your carbon frame? We love Ruckus Composites! They will get your injured carbon fiber frame back on the road! Really, they're brilliant and amazing folks!